


Reluctance

by CopperCaravan



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Adrenaline addiction, Codename: Tens, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, literally nothing is resolved, no one deals with anything in a healthy way, not sexual content but references to potential sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:43:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6213127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tens tries Jet with Hancock and doesn't like it. It's really just a moment-in-between-things with the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My Survivor's "name" is Tens, just to clear that up.

“So, ah, you ok over there?”

She looks up, though she doesn’t rise from her seat on the overturned bucket, to see Hancock making his way toward her, almost hopping over the body of a dead Super Mutant. Nasty bit of business, all of it; she sort of hates killing them, would avoid it if they would just leave her the fuck alone. She digs her knuckles into her leg with a bit more weight than she had been.

“Yeah,” she says, giving him a cursory up and down as he gets closer, making sure _he’s_ ok. “Why?”

He tips his head toward her hand, the middle knuckles of her fingers still digging into her leg with a steady rhythm. “You been doin’ that a lot lately; wonderin’ if you’re hurt or somethin’.”

It’s become habit: kneading that quiet, hidden bruise. There’s something familiar, something almost sweet in the ache of it, in keeping the thing present. It’s not quite the kind of pain she usually relies on, but there’s something satisfying in it all the same. Particularly at times like this when her other methods aren’t readily available... or wise.

“Nah,” she says, finally rising and throwing her gun over her shoulder like an old bag. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

...

Before... well, _before,_ drugs hadn’t been her bag. She’d not particularly liked the way most of them smelled, she’d not cared for the idea of not being fully in control of herself, and she’d not held any excitement for the possible botched results of laced or poorly made product. But Hancock wants her to take a hit with him and they’re relatively safe, locked up in the top floor of this gutted old gas station. So she finishes boarding them up and falls to the thin mattress with a heavy _thunk_ and takes the inhaler he offers. Why the hell not?

He seems happy enough that after all his offers, she’s finally humouring him. Jet is one of his favourites; he always seems so calm, so light hearted, when he’s on it. It might be worth a try, if only one.

The inhale’s not unpleasant, exactly. Not the same smokey, gritty, raspy inhale of a 200 year old smoke. It almost reminds her of those old throat sprays—numbs her up like she’s had swollen tonsils for a week. She’d make a joke about a blowjob if she knew where he’d land on it, whichever way it was. As it is, though, she’s not sure where either of them stand in relation to... relationships. Not something she wants to throw into an already complicated mix of radiated monsters, dead family, and metal people.

At first, it doesn’t feel like much, but within the count of a minute, things have slowed down considerably. Hancock’s leaning comfortably against the wall beside her, his legs sprawled out in front of him, wearing a happy grin and lighting a smoke.

Things are slow and soft and she feels so calm—like she’s never had a problem in her life.

She doesn’t like it.

She shakes her head (too slowly) and struggles to find her words deep in the dark of her head.

_I don’t like it. I want to get off._

Her mouth won’t open wide enough for her words to come out; her lips won’t move fast enough. It makes her panic.

“I want to get off,” she mutters.

Hancock turns his head toward her. “What’d you say?”

She shakes her head again and her hands grip the hem of her shirt. She yanks it over her head with as much force as she can (which isn’t much) and says again “I want to get off; I want to wake up.”

Hancock holds his cigarette between two fingers and chuckles. “Am I gettin’ a private show? ‘Cause I’m definitely down for that, sister.”

“I want to wake up,” she says again, loud as she can manage (and still barely anything). She reaches for his cigarette and he hands it to her without reluctance and she takes a deep, deep inhale before letting the smoke rise slow from her mouth.

“Beautiful,” Hancock says slowly, staring at the O of her lips, but she doesn’t think so. It’s all so, _so_ goddamn slow.

So she takes another quick puff, then two, then three, making the cherry burn bright as she can before she shoves it into the soft skin just above the crook of her elbow. It actually sizzles, or maybe she imagines it, but she doesn’t imagine the little trail of smoke rising from her flesh and _thank god_ she doesn’t imagine the sting, the burn, the blessed pain that stirs her from her Jet induced waking sleep.

“Whoa! Whoa! What are you doing?” Hancock, his high thoroughly ruined, tries to yank the smoke away from her, but she’s not having it, not going to pull it away until the smell of burning flesh reaches her nose and it hasn’t yet. “Stop! Stop it! What are you doing? Fuck.”

She finally lets him jerk it away from her. He throws it behind him and inspects the perfect, stinging O on her arm. His fingers are careful, slow around the edges and uncertain. “What the fuck were you doing?”

“Accident,” she says, unable to hide her grin. She’s awake again. She’s awake and it hurts and goddamn it’s so good to be awake.

“That wasn’t a fucking accident,” he says. And he is oh-so-pissed. “Why’d you do that?”

His hands are still on her and she thinks she could get used to that, but more important is the dulling pain—he’s slathering on some ointment and she jerks her arm away.

“I’ll take care of it later,” she says, a bit too venomous. But after that—after the Jet—she’s not letting anything take this away from her. Just a few more minutes and she’ll be fine. She can bandage it up then.


	2. Chapter 2

“You found me,” she says, leaning back on the heels of her hands as Hancock drops to the ground beside her, swinging his legs over the edge of the elevator platform.

Vault 111. Of all the places for her to hide.

Sanctuary, and the Commonwealth beyond that, are spread out below them and she doesn’t shift her gaze from it.

“I can leave. If you—”

“No,” she says quickly, still keeping her eyes on the land before them but shifting her hand to hold his wrist. “I just came up here to be alone. But you don’t count—I mean, you’re not... Christ. _Words._ You’re not a bother, Hancock. I wasn’t trying to get away from _you_ just...”

“Yeah, I get that,” he says. And does he ever. Trying for some time alone when you’re the fucking mayor of Goodneighbor is a joke. Hell, half the reason he’s out here with her is to get away from all the people who want his attention, his favours, his time. She doesn’t seem to get away from it no matter where they go: from here to Quincy, there’s always somebody what wants _her_ attention, _her_ favours, _her_ time. And she gives.

She gives and gives and gives.

So a break? Yeah, he gets that. But he doesn’t get the bandage on her arm, covering a day-old cigarette burn that she still won’t talk about.

“You’ve got your ways of dealing with shit,” she’d said. “And I got mine.”

And he can’t bring it up— _he_ can’t bring it up. He knows a thing or two about fucking up his own shit on purpose; what the hell’s he supposed to say that isn’t gonna be hypocritical bullshit?

So instead, “What’re you doin’ up here, though?” he asks. He stays very still, noting that she hasn’t yet moved her hand away and hoping she doesn’t.

“Just thinking about Nate,” she says. Dead husband? Now there’s a bucket of cold water.

Who knows how long the guy’s been dead, but for her, it’s only been a few months, only been... _Stupid,_ he thinks, glancing down at her hand on his, the way the Commonwealth’s damaged her skin with sun and scars and radiation and even still, she’s beautiful and he’s... As if grief were the only thing between them.

“You miss him?” _Stupid question,_ he scolds himself. But he’s at a loss, doesn’t really know what to say.

“No,” she says. Breathes it, really, like she’s let out a breath she’s been holding for a long time. And then she _laughs._ It’s quiet, breathy, unhappy even, but it’s laughter and if Hancock was lost before he’s got no chance of finding his way back now. “All the _shit_ it took to get here, huh?”

“Tell me about it, sister,” he says, thinking of all the shit he had to do—didn’t _have_ to do, should’ve done, shouldn’t’ve done. It’s almost a fucking joke at this point. But he thinks about telling her he’s glad. Not for all the pain she was dealt but just that she’s here, that he’s here too. _Gotta be something to it,_ he decides, glancing once more at their hands, her hand, her skin... his. _Gotta be something to the both of us being here together after all that._

But that’s not... That’s not the kinda shit people say in these circumstances. _“These circumstances.”_ Fuck’s sake.

“I don’t regret any of it,” she says, squeezing his hand and she laughs again and this laughter, too, is a far cry from happy. “Not what I’m supposed to say, I guess. _Words_ again. But this is where I belong, you know?”

He’s hesitant to agree. From everything she’s told him about the old world, from everything he learned growing up, he wonders if anybody really _belongs_ in the Commonwealth. Another life and maybe he’d still be handsome, still have something to offer the world that ain’t violent and self-destructive and half-assed hopes for redemption. Another life and maybe she’d still be living in that house down below them, still have her kid and her husband and wouldn’t have half the scars she’s got now.

But she’d said she didn’t miss him, Nate. Seems almost... profane to say something like that, with the guy’s house down below them and his body too. Seems even worse for Hancock to be kinda glad she’d said it, despite how much he’s pushing that down into himself, hiding it in the darkest parts of him. Gotta laugh that shit off.

He spreads his free hand out toward the Commonwealth and snickers. “Welcome to the world then. Deathclaws, mutants, raiders.” He dares to tighten his fingers around hers and he winks. “Charismatic ghouls. All anybody could ever want.”

And when she smiles, it’s not like before. There’s a happiness there, a sincerity he doesn’t understand. “You’ve got no idea, John.”

And he doesn’t. Who’d pick a wasteland full of monsters over a family and a home? Who’d pick camping out in subways and shacks over a roof with no holes and a running shower? Who’d pick 200 years lost and sitting in the dirt with him over a world where there were no bombs and no radiation and there was a man who looked like a man and loved her?

He’s been here. His whole life has been this. He knows it: the wasteland, the people, the way of things. But she hasn’t; she popped out of the freezer less than a year ago and by all accounts, she ought to be dead. But she’s lived this life like she was born to it, like she was born _for_ it, like she really does belong here. Something about it all makes him sick; he can’t offer her anything like that. No handsome face to wake up next to, no thick hair to run her fingers through, no house, no safety, no future. There’s no such thing in this world but in _her_ world, there had been and now she’s here in the fucking dirt and he’s looking at her hand on his like it’s the way things are supposed to be.

“That’s a hell of a face you’re making, John.”

“Wh—Well, it’s a hell of a face I’ve got,” he tosses back, a last second save from asking another stupid question.

She’s not amused. Never is when he says something like that but it’s just so much easier to remind himself before other people get the idea that he needs reminding. Still, he regrets it the second she starts to pull her hand away and he can’t decide which is more cowardly: to hold onto her or just let her fucking go already.

Not up to him though because a second later she’s got one hand on his check and she’s looking him in the eyes like she might just slap him. “You gotta stop saying shit like that.”

He imagines somebody standing off to the side, watching. Her hand on his face and him looking at her like she’s the only good thing in the whole goddamn world. Just looking and you’d think it was all so simple, but it’s not. All the shit you can’t see, that’s what matters: a dead man hundreds of feet below them, a cigarette burn on her arm, a face he remembers seeing when he looked in the mirror and him not knowing if he misses seeing that fucker or not.

_That wasn’t a fucking accident. Why’d you do that?_ he’d asked her.

_You gotta stop saying shit like that,_ she’d said.

Her hand and his face. Nothing’s ever that easy.

“You’ve got your way of dealing with shit, sunshine. And I got mine.”


End file.
